Downfall of paparazzi queen Mimi Marchand with police ‘on her payroll’

The hearing will have all the ingredients of a good British tabloid story: sex, drugs, money, a disgraced politician and a glamorous television star.
Yet the case of the “paparazzi queen”, her favourite photographer and the policeman who is alleged to have been their informant will take place in Paris, where commentators like to sneer at Britain’s press but overlook the faults of their own.
This month an investigating magistrate ordered the trial of Mimi Marchand, 77, founder of the Bestimage photo agency, for allegedly demanding €3,000 from Karine Le Marchand, a television presenter, not to publish images of her 21-year-old daughter leaving a police station in Paris, where she had been questioned over alleged cannabis use.
Sébastien Valiela, who took the photo­graphs, will also stand trial, as will the police officer, named only as Marc M, who allegedly tipped them off about ­Alya Le Marchand’s arrest in February 2020.
Valiela, who is remembered for his photographs of France’s socialist presidents — revealing that François Mitterrand had a secret love child and François Hollande slipped out of the Élysée Palace to see his mistress — has denied wrongdoing, as have Marchand and Marc M.
The 45-year-old police officer will ­also be tried in connection with allegations that he tipped off Valiela about the arrest the same month of Piotr Pavlenski, a Russian artist, who had posted videos online showing Benjamin Griveaux, a former minister in President Macron’s government, performing a sexual act alone in a hotel in front of a computer camera. Pavlenski was accused of setting an online honeytrap for Griveaux, although he depicted himself as a misunderstood genius whose images were a form of performance art. He was given a six-month prison sentence after being found guilty of publishing videos of a sexual nature.
Marc M is accused of falsifying police records to hide the photographer’s presence when Pavlenski was arrested.
The second part of the trial will centre on Le Marchand’s allegations that she was asked for money to avoid publication of photographs of her daughter. She paid the first tranche of €1,600 before going to the police.
In an Instagram post at the time, she accused Marchand — who is no relation — of “extorting” the money from her after securing the photographs by paying police officers for information about celebrities. Marchand, who is known for presenting a popular dating show for farmers, said her “intelligent, sensitive and kind” daughter had tested positive for cannabis at the wheel of her car, but was undergoing treatment to end her dependency on the drug.
In the leaked report the investigating magistrate said Marchand had “first procured a means to put pressure on Karine Le Marchand … and then ensured, through lies and insidious psychological pressure, that [she] felt ­financially and morally in debt to her.”
Marchand, who is close to Macron and his wife, Brigitte, denies applying any pressure on the TV presenter, whom she told the investigating magistrate “insisted” on paying the money.
No date has been set for the trial.